<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Hunger by eyelessbaby</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081604">Hunger</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyelessbaby/pseuds/eyelessbaby'>eyelessbaby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Camping, Developing Relationship, Friendship, Love/Hate, Mentioned Sansa Stark, Multi, Nudity, Pre-Relationship, Romance if you squint, Travel, Violence, animal death but its livestock not a pet, feelings are hard, the hound</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:20:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081604</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyelessbaby/pseuds/eyelessbaby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya and The Hound have been travelling together for a long time. What have they learned from observing each other so long? They're growing restless and hungry.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sandor Clegane &amp; Arya Stark, Sandor Clegane/Arya Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Dinner</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sheep flocked the pasture greens and roamed into the empty country lanes as the strange pair walked side by side. The Hound led Stranger, and Arya straggled behind a little, kicking up pebbles with each careless kick of her feet. They’d been walking for a while now; The Hound insisted they walked until they found food for all three of them. Arya thought it uncharacteristic of The Hound to give a damn about some animal. Frankly, it irritated her and her tired, swollen feet. The sheep crowding them on the roads only made her more annoyed. It was clear that The Hound shared this sentiment. They were both tired, hungry, and thoroughly sick of each other’s company. As they walked, the path narrowed between two stone walls, and before they knew it, sheep clogged the entire path.</p><p><br/>
“Move, damn you!” Arya cried out, trying to budge past the immovable baa-ing sheep.</p><p><br/>
“They won’t move even if you start swinging your pathetic sword at them, girl,” The Hound said, resigning himself and stepping back from the sheep-clogged lane. He unsheathed his broadsword and swung it in front of one of the sheep, stabbing it into the ground directly in front of a stupefied sheep’s face. It hardly flinched and let out another baa before nonchalantly taking a few steps back.</p><p><br/>
Arya watched with a horrified expression on her face. She wasn’t scared of The Hound; she was scared of his strength. Her body was thin and frail in comparison to his despite her dedication training. His frame dwarfed hers like a heavy shadow. When their bodies were pushed close together while riding Stranger, she could see how sturdy his firm body was and how easy it would be for him to crush her, crack her, break her in a squeeze. She only ever got hints of it, when he’d forcefully grab her arm and yank her back. It felt like her bones might snap. What if he lost control? Then her stomach rumbled. Being horrified by the man in front of her only made her more hungry.</p><p><br/>
“I could eat a whole one of these,” she mused to herself, placing her hand to Needle— itching to pull it out, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it in the moment despite her gurgling stomach.</p><p><br/>
Watching her from the corner of his eye, The Hound scoffed and pulled his sword from the ground with a grunt before placing it back in its sheath along his belt. “Bet a lady like yourself never slaughtered her own dinner before.”</p><p><br/>
“Stop calling me a lady! And I know the Clegane family; you grew up with servants too, didn’t you?” she retorted smugly.<br/>
“So what if I did? I’ve had to fend for myself more than once, but your daddy’d never make his girl work for a meal, eh?”</p><p><br/>
“A sheep’s an easy target for a trained killer, huh?”</p><p><br/>
“A sheep’s an easy target for a 7 year old boy.”</p><p><br/>
Arya fell silent and started to climb up the stone wall. When she reached the top, she plopped down and dangled her legs over the edge, crossing her arms over her chest.</p><p><br/>
“Go on then. If it’s so easy, do it. Get us dinner,” she said, nodding towards the sheep. Surely the sheep’s owner would never miss one with all this flock around them.</p><p><br/>
“Not above stealing now either, eh, girl?” The Hound remarked without looking back to her. As he unsheathed his sword again with a metallic dragging sound, her defense came in the form of her opening her mouth to squawk at him again; they were not one and the same— she and Sandor Clegane. But she knew she was too late to make any such argument. Swing. Just like that, the sharp scraping noise of metal dissipated through the air. There was a loud scream that sounded almost human and then a thud. A heavy woolen corpse laid at The Hound’s feet.</p><p><br/>
The whole time, Arya couldn’t look away; she had seen much worse by now, but her shoulders still tensed up as she gripped the edge of the stonewall she sat upon, and she leaned in with excitement. The way The Hound’s shoulders rolled with the swing of his sword, and his thick arms made the swift movement look almost effortless, but she knew how heavy that sword was. His muscles tensed briefly then relaxed with the sound of the sword meeting its target. Arya felt the palms of her hands grow damp and her legs jiggled gleefully at the sheer amount of power it took to cut clean through that thick sheep’s neck. The ease of killing, the swiftness of a moment was all it took to bring someone from living to dead. It was obvious, but seeing it in action, craving that power and precision made her stomach gurgle once more. Everything about Eyes wide, Arya read attentive and alert. Until The Hound looked back at her, and her shoulders quickly fell and her body relaxed, eyes falling from The Hound’s frame to that of the lifeless sheep that laid, beautifully slaughtered and dripping with blood. Her appetite didn’t waver.</p><p><br/>
“Dinner,” he announced.</p><p><br/>
Thank the Gods. She might have nearly fainted from hunger, and she didn’t want The Hound to have the satisfaction of seeing her vulnerable. Surely, he too was feeling the weakness from hunger, but it certainly didn’t look it from the strength behind that swing. Now that his eyes weren’t on her, she watched him quietly as he put his sword away again and lifted the sheep’s corpse up and over his shoulders. Weight bearing down on them, causing those rigid, squared shoulders to droop ever so slightly. As her eyes lingered on his back, with the rise and fall of his chest plate armor, even from behind him, she could see that his breathing was more ragged than usual after a fight.</p><p><br/>
Finally, they had enough to make a meal for all three of them with this freshly slaughtered sheep. As night fell, they took cover in a nearby woods to prepare and devour their meal. Arya poked and prodded at the fire with a stick that was too wet too burn. Small embers flew up into the air and caught the wind, her eyes followed them as they neared the Hound and then disappeared as it cooled before reaching him. Her chest felt tight while watching the embers float too freely. She poked at it again now from a different direction. Once the fire blazed on happily, Arya glanced up and watching The Hound carve into the carcass of the sheep. He had already shed the sheep of his wooly skin and now it was pink and greyish. She watched as his dagger plunged softly into the sheep’s fatty muscle. She felt her mouth water.</p><p><br/>
Once the meat was cut, Arya skewered the chunks onto a stick and roasted them over the fire, hardly patient enough for it to cook all the way through. All three of them, Stanger included, scarfed up each serving of meat as the sheep was passed around.</p><p><br/>
Picking the last of his dinner from his teeth with a thick grubby finger, The Hound sat on a log that kept its distance from the fire, where Arya sat near it and across the way. Neither of them made eye contact, but their actions mirrored each other eerily, both picking away at their teeth, desperate for one last taste of the meat before bed. Arya glanced up across the flame and noticed their similar positions, and quickly removed her finger from her mouth and wiped it on her pant leg.<br/>
The flames flicked in front of her face and the warm meat that was digesting in her belly made her cozy and full and satisfied all over. She scooted down onto the dirt and leaned back against the log as a rest. Her eyes couldn’t help but catch The Hound’s once in a while. They were dark and callous and unforgiving, most of the time, but watching him like this, he was just human with the need to eat and survive, just like herself.</p><p><br/>
“What’re you going to do when I’m gone?” Arya spoke up to break the long silence the two of them had carried.<br/>
The Hound glanced up to her and raised his brow.</p><p><br/>
“You think I need you?” He responded in a grunt once he stopped picking at his teeth.<br/>
She nodded.</p><p><br/>
“What would I need a brat like you for?” He scoffed. Perhaps there were a few things, but he kept in his place and fell silent.<br/>
“I mean, you’ll have money if my ransom pays, but you’ll have nowhere to go,” she observed, crossing her legs and relaxing back with casual ease. “You’ll have to run off to the woods again just like now, but you won’t even be able to warm up next to a fire or cook your own dinner.”</p><p><br/>
Arya’s mouth was still open as if she was about to rattle off more reasons why he needed her around, but he wouldn’t let her continue.</p><p><br/>
“You think too much of yourself.”</p><p><br/>
“You forget how long we’ve traveled together, and how much I’ve been taught.”</p><p><br/>
“You mean like your little girlish dancing?”</p><p><br/>
“No. It’s not girlish. Girls are stupid,” Arya said bitterly. She leapt up from where she was laying and placed her hand on Needle’s hilt, ready to draw and fight him. “I meant, how much I learned from watching you.”</p><p><br/>
The Hound looked puzzled again as he observed her with a strange expression. “You’re right. Girls are stupid, so why don’t you sit back down?” His voice was harsh and commanding.</p><p><br/>
“Girls like my sister are stupid. I’m not,” Arya argued, drawing Needle and pointing it right at The Hound. “All she believes in are looks and honor. She believed that knights were gentlemen, but I know. You’re just a coward.”</p><p><br/>
“Your sister is beautiful,” The Hound stated. Ayra’s mouth fell agape, and she looked about ready to stab Needle right through The Hound, but she wasn’t quite sure why. She didn’t like hearing him talk about her sister that way for some reason. “And you’d be a fool not to recognize it. Men like a naive woman, gentlemen or not. If you’re so different, don’t hold back with that twig of yours. Stab me if you're no coward and wish to defend your sister from a dishonorable old dog.”</p><p><br/>
Arya's stance wavered, hesitant, but looking like she still wanted to go through with it. The Hound was bluffing. She knew he had to be scared. She knew he had to be provoking her. Her sister had no place on his tongue. Especially after all the time they had been travelling together. Would he really have preferred her sister’s company? Just because she was beautiful. She supposed most men preferred her sister in that way. But what did he really know about her sister? He mentioned something before, about saving her, but she refused to believe a thing he said. ...But then again, something in her told her that he was telling the truth. The Hound didn’t say a lot, but over their travels together, she could slowly piece together when he was being honest or just putting on an act.</p><p><br/>
“Put down the sword, why don’t ya?” The Hound said, keeping his eyes locked on her own. “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already. I know how quick you are.”</p><p><br/>
He was right. At some point, she had dropped his name from her list without even noticing it. She had been watching him, learning about him, but there were still so many things she didn’t know or understand about Sandor Clegane. Whether she wanted to know them or not was another story, but she couldn’t help but be curious. A dishonored knight with the killing ability of at least ten men, but he was scared of fire, and Ayra supposed he could hardly get along without her, despite what he said.</p><p><br/>
She was lost in thought again, still holding onto her sword, with it now pointed at the ground. She hadn’t even noticed that The Hound had casually gotten up and gone over to rummage around in his horse’s saddle bags.</p><p><br/>
“At least Stranger was able to get something to eat,” The Hound commented, mostly to himself, as he patted his horse on the muzzle.</p><p><br/>
“Stranger?” Arya burst out laughing. “That’s so lame! I thought you said only cunts named things.”</p><p><br/>
“Only cunts name their swords. He’s been a loyal companion for me for years,” The Hound said, adjusting his horse’s saddle bags before going to make himself comfortable for the night.</p><p><br/>
That was so unexpected to hear. She stared at him again, unable to quite grasp him. She wanted to be able to understand. One must know their enemies better than their friends, and Arya wasn’t so sure if any of her friends were still around anymore. The Hound though, he could never be her friend, could he?</p><p><br/>
He must’ve felt lonely too. But that was none of her concern; he was the one who kidnapped her. If she wasn’t enough for him, that was his own fault. She couldn’t provide for him the way a woman could. Not that she ever dared to. The thought of being a lady, of doing the womanly, ladylike things her sister was trained to do, made her sick.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Bath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Arya and the Hound's journey continues as the near the Eyrie. Things come to a close.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Large clouds hung overhead while Arya and the Hound rested for the night. Arya’s head swam with thoughts of her home, her sister, her father. Arya dreamt of the sheep slaughtered at her own request. The sword coming down on its neck, the sword coming down on her father. The strength it took to do it in just one swing. Her belly warmed, she squirmed, and then her stomach growled. When a breeze swept over Arya and almost blew out their already dwindling fire, Arya awoke, peeking open her eyes to spot The Hound, still resting silently away from the fire, by the tree. She shivered and tightened her cloak around her shoulders as she stood up and crept over to Stranger, who too slept soundly.<br/>
</p><p>“Trying to run off, girl?” A grizzly voice echoed out through the dark.<br/>
Arya scoffed as she stuck her hand into Stranger’s saddle bag and pulled out some of the leftover mutton.<br/>
“I was hungry,” she finally replied bitterly as she plopped down on the log and started to tear away at the meat with her teeth gracelessly. Arya stuck out the large bone of meat, pieces dangling from it as she reached it over the fire towards The Hound.<br/>
</p><p>He shook his head and she shrugged before taking another bite.<br/>
“Where would I go?” she asked.<br/>
“To you Aunt’s.”<br/>
“I rather take my chances.”<br/>
“A place to call home and learn some manners then,” he supplied.<br/>
“Why are you always so insistent on that? What about your horrid manners?”<br/>
“A girl shouldn’t subject herself to a man’s world.”<br/>
“I’m NOT a girl. I don’t want to live in a <i>fantasy</i>. It isn’t real.”<br/>
“You might be better off believing it was.”<br/>
“Like Sansa? I’m <i>not</i> my sister.”<br/>
“Obviously.”<br/>
“Why do you keep bringing her up?”<br/>
“You’re the one,” he pointed out.<br/>
“But you like her, don’t you?”<br/>
“She reminds me of someone.”<br/>
“Who?” Arya huffed.<br/>
“Me.”<br/>
Arya laughed and blew off his response as a joke. Her laugh was deep and hearty, she grabbed her belly, and she threatened to fall back over the log.<br/>
</p><p>“If you’re done, go back to sleep,” The Hound interrupted harshly as he laid back down.<br/>
Arya watched and waited to see if he closed his eyes. Before she knew it, the sun was rising just in time to wake her up. The fire had long since sizzled out. She didn’t even remember falling back asleep.</p><p>	***</p><p>	The mutton was gone before long, and with the absence of meat, they grew hungry again too soon.<br/>
“You reek,” Arya spoke up as they rode Strange down the path.<br/>
“We’ll stop at the creek up ahead to wash up.”<br/>
</p><p>By the time they arrived at the creek, they were both glad to be off Stranger and be on their feet again. Arya rolled out her shoulders as she paced around, and The Hound rung at the back of his neck.<br/>
</p><p>“You, bathe down the creek a ways.” Arya’s eyes followed his hands as The Hound pointed over the hell. When she looked back towards him, he was already heading down towards another crook of the creek himself.<br/>
</p><p>Already starting to unlace her shirt, Arya went down the hill to a secluded part of the creek. By the water’s edge, she knelt down and speeches her face with the cool refreshing water. When she looked back up, she noticed two wolves across the bank, one larger one smaller. The little one watched as the bigger one drank from the wealth of water. Arya stood quietly and backed away—forgoing her bath in attempts not to disturb them. Arya headed back to the three where they tied up Stranger and spotted The Hound down at the creek.<br/>
</p><p>The Hound was standing bare-naked in the water, wading up to his thighs. Suddenly, he reached down a splash of water breaking the silence, and he pulled up a squirming fish that resembled the way his penis flopped around when he snatched it from the water. Arya watched as he efficiently snapped the bones of the fish to stop its squirming— (Arya wondered if that’s how one handled a penis as well.)<br/>
</p><p>She watched the muscles of The Hound’s back contrast as he hunched forward, examining the water for another fish. The scars along his body were just as impressive as the muscle. His ass was hairy and so was his chest. His hair dangled over his face, and he looked like a wild animal, hunting and guarding its prey.<br/>
</p><p>Arya grew eager. She turned away and unsheathed Needle, flourishing it first out in the open before she struck at the tree, peeling some bark away as she did.<br/>
</p><p>The Hound returned with three fish skewered onto a stick. His hair was wet and pushed back out of his face. He had clearly haphazardly dried himself before dressing and coming this way.<br/>
“You’re dry,” he remarked.<br/>
“You’re wet.”<br/>
“Wash up or start a fire. We’re not going to play around here all day.”<br/>
“You were.”<br/>
“What?”<br/>
“I saw you flopping around with those fish,” she mumbled under her breath. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?”<br/>
“The Eyrie is just a few days' travel away.”<br/>
</p><p>Arya huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. The Hound rolled his eyes.<br/>
“Now go on and wash yourself so your aunt will receive you.”<br/>
“Don’t you need me to start the fire and cook lunch? You really will be useless on your own, you know.”<br/>
“Go.”<br/>
</p><p>When Arya started stomping off, The Hound took Stranger to the water for a drink.<br/>
</p><p>The wolves were gone when Arya got back to the water. Resigning herself, she stripped and jumped into the water. Seeing a shimmer of a fish in the water when all the splash had settled, she swiped at it. But she felt it slip through her fingers. But her stomach growled in excitement at the thought of how close she was to catching up to him.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>